The New York Times reports on the recent x-ray investigations of Kazimir Malevich, and the racist joke uncovered as part of the work’s title in the bottom corner of the piece, and the work’s historical ties to the French avant-garde. “It was believed that this work was done spontaneously, but the results of our investigation reveal that the process of its creation was complex and took a long time,” Irina Vakar, the Tretyakov Gallery’s chief researcher of the Russian avant-garde